


Three Lions

by standbyme



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Depression, Hurt, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-04
Updated: 2012-02-04
Packaged: 2017-10-30 14:59:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/333001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/standbyme/pseuds/standbyme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I've been taking all the shortcuts through alleys in the dark, because I'm not scared of the shadows that are no blacker than my heart."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Three Lions

**Dead Giveaway**

 

and it’s like every time he stops and sees someone do something that he did  
and he feels that swell of anger  
because that _was his_ and that is what _he did_ and no matter how he tries to hate he can’t deny what made him _him_

and maybe that hurts the worst of all - like when he left all of him got scattered and absorbed by everyone else to constantly remind him that he was there and he walked there and he held his head that way

a girl with blue eyes  
a child imitating the stance of his father, arms crossed, jaw stiff  
a woman squinting in the sun  
the old man bending to look at the flower  
like all of creation is there or the memory of someone they loved too  
like they are reminded and everything is testament to a beautiful and grand secret that they carry in their pockets like loose change or car keys

distractedly staring at these people he is not allowed to know but grieving just the same with white knuckles on the wheel and a distorted sense of ownership - like a trench coat balled in the trunk of your car makes you responsible for the person who wore it and who they were and what they did and all the actions that made them up and every word that they said and every time they looked at you or looked just past you…like you were a horizon…

like a second childhood coming far too late and all he wants to do is clutch him to his chest and scream to keep away

keep away because it was mine.

he was mine.

**Par For The Course**

**  
**

Sometimes Dean wakes up and legitimately thinks that it won’t be hard anymore.

That maybe, today, it will be easier to forget that there is something sitting on his chest and that it plays idle games of tic-tac-toe on his skin with claws as long as his hand.  How it smiles at him sadly because every games a draw and tilts its head and pens its little ‘x’s and little ‘o’s wherever it pleases.

No, some days, Dean wakes up and he really thinks it’ll be better.

But it never quite is. Sometimes Sammy can distract him, sometimes there’s a pretty girl, sometimes there’s enough whiskey.

It’s never better though, and when he finally gets to sleep there isn’t anything he can do except screw up his eyes against the pain and take one startling shallow breath after another and hope Sam doesn’t hear him too much.

Tomorrow though, the beast may be gone. It may finally leave. Maybe Dean won’t even have to ask it to go, it’ll just disappear and he can finally take a full breath and he won’t feel like he’s not getting _enough_. Enough of what, Dean isn’t sure he wants to figure out.

Once you acknowledge it’s missing you have to get it back, and he doesn’t know how to do that.

He walks around feeling malnourished, in the mean time.

There’s absolutely nothing to be done about it. It just presses closer to him and nestles itself between his lungs and keeps at it, patient and resigned to its fate to endlessly attempt at _something_. It keeps playing as if one day it will win. When it wins, or maybe if it loses, it may leave, Dean thinks. So every day he thinks today will be the day it’ll end. Something will change.

He wants to tell it to go, but he can’t. Every time he tries it looks at him with blue eyes and Dean can’t do it. He can’t tell it to go, can’t tell it to leave him for good.

He doesn’t know what ‘for good’ looks like at this point, because gone means a lion on his chest, and gone meant a water-logged trench coat, and gone looked like two fist pressed against his eyes at night and lips parted in something silent and terrifying, like a sob made of hot coals or a string of needles in his throat.

Sometimes, Dean wakes up and thinks it’ll be better, that this won’t own him, won’t mark him up like a child with their favorite toy.  
  
He breathes as deep as he can and encourages the lion to try again, because it’s all he can do.

 

**Bad Religion**

 

Dean dances his fingers over the edges of the flame.

He wishes Sammy had burned him, left him as ashes.

The lighter flicks on and off.

There will be no next time.

Next time he will burn Sammy, won’t bury him. He’ll burn him to dust, he’ll scatter him away, free, _finally_.

Dean watches the flame of his lighter dance, a gypsy in the dark, flickering and seductive.

He wants to hold it to the edge of his jacket - douse himself in gasoline - and go up in one huge explosion. White hot and shrieking.

He’ll scream on the way down, he’ll roll on the ground and reach his arms towards heaven.

_Here I am! I am here!_

_I’m here._

_I’m here.  
_

He’ll wail and wait for pale hands to grab him up and blue eyes to hold him through the frenzy. Oh, he’ll scream. He’ll scream for those hands. Like some lamb on an alter he’ll burn. Clean flame, blue and white, roasting in his shoes. His smoke will spell that long kept secret, every spark will spit a prayer for the one who can save him, no God, no man, but that one who came before, and will come again.

_Repentence_

He’ll scream it, head thrown back, body arched.

Yeah, that’s how it will go.

Dean and fire. Clean, precise, fire, that doesn’t pretend to be anything it’s not.

Lakes hide secrets.

He’ll torch himself, a beacon, so Cas can find him in the darkness, a tear in the black to catch Cas’s eyes. When his eyes roll over humanity, he’ll catch Dean in one star of scorching blaze and those hands will come down shouting mercy and safety.

_find me find me find me find me_

With every click of the lighter.

That’s how it will go.

 


End file.
